Reviews

Six Feet Under: Bringer of blood

23/05/12 || BamaHammer

With a new SFU release on the horizon, I’ve been thinking about these guys more than normal (which means “at all”). I’ll say what eleventy-thousand fuckers have already said before: It’s hard to believe that Chris Barnes was once the blood-curdling guttural, or bloocurttural, (Fuck you. I make words.) vocalist of the single most important death metal band of all time. By the time I heard this piss-poor performance on this piss-poor disc, Barnes had apparently smoked himself stupid and lost all semblance of any clue he may have once had for creativity and musical ability. It’s hard even to put into words what he sounds like on here, but I’ll try. He sounds like a coughing, bleeding rectum. It pretty much ruins whatever possible redeeming quality this whole shitty package may have had, which was very little to begin with. At least the instrumentalists suck ass too. Wouldn’t want Barnes showing out too much on such an album.

Records like this are a lot like really shitty horror movies. They’re absolutely terrible, and you know they’re terrible before you even press play, but like any good train wreck, you just can’t keep from giving it your full, undivided attention for at least the first play through, and it provides some good, clean hilarity for a little while. The production on “Bringer of blood”, or just “Bob” from now on, actually sounds fairly average. Then the vocals kick in, and ol’ Bob’s got you rolling on the floor in laughter. “Toke ‘til it sounds good,” was apparently their rallying cry in the studio, and since Barnes himself was the producer, they just went with it. Maybe they smoked his channel’s volume slider too. The world will never know.

You can figure out and play every riff on the album within a single listen if you play guitar. If you don’t play, it’ll take you two listens. What’s really sad about the album is the fact that Steve Swanson, the guitarist, was in Massacre, and even worse, Terry Butler, who handles the bass, was in Massacre in their heyday and still is, and played on Death’s “Leprosy” and “Spiritual Healing” albums! You’ve gotta be fucken kidding me! So here they are just making certain that they are a part of something to soil their legacy, the proverbial turd in the punch bowl of their semi-respectable careers.

Honestly, there’s really no substitute for the level of awful you’ll find on this album in regards to the lyrics that Bob presents. Holy jumpin’ fucken shit balls:

Listen, it’s a fucking joke, and they make you believe it on the TV.That’s how they deceive you.I watch and I listen, and I question their reasons.You know what, I don’t fuckin’ believe ‘em.NO WAR, Amerika the brutal.

After reading that, I felt inclined to stand and sing the “Star spangled banner” into a megaphone. It’s all quite poetic and pulls on my heartstrings.

Anyway, like I said, this disc is best used as a coaster. It did come in some fancy shmancy digipak with a DVD back in the day that I actually watched, and it’s terrible and hilarious as well. I’m sincerely thankful for everything Chris Barnes has contributed to the metal scene. I actually don’t even know where we’d be today without him, and that’s scary. But for the sake of his legacy and the state of the metal world in general, this is one that we should never have heard. He should have quit while he was behind. This is quite simply one of the most hilariously terrible albums I’ve ever heard. However, it is still better, albeit slightly, than Spartacus. Fuck Bob in the ass.